DCC Archive Cool cover versions

Today I spun Train Kept a Rollin' by the Rock n' Roll Trio and the Yardbirds take on that fine tune - Aerosmith's version isn't handy for me but it's great, too. Any other tunes that have great cover versions come to yer collective noggins???

Originally posted by Steve Hoffman:
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I was so clueless when I was a kid, I thought that "Roll Over Beethoven", "Not Fade Away", "Honey Don't", "Time Is On My Side", etc., were Beatles & Stones originals.

The Beatles got me listening into "oldies" in the first place. Before they came along, the oldest music I had was "Murmur" by R.E.M.

For awhile, I was unsure if they did the original versions of "Money" or "Please Mr. Postman" or if they were actually covers (ridiculous, eh?).

I just wish they did more Buddy Holly. "Words of Love" was a good cover. Thank god for the BBC sessions, too. "Hippy Hippy Shake," "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby"...was there anything this band couldn't do?

Originally posted by Luke Pacholski:
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Well, I'd hardly call that a cover. Yeah, it was written by Dylan, but it was written while playing with The Band, and they recorded it first, so...
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All true. You could argue that actually Dylan recorded it first (with the Band backing, yes) during the "Basement Tapes" sessions, but I guess for all intents and purposes that was just a demo. I guess I was just going by a strict definition of cover, as in recording something you didn't write yourself ...

Originally posted by Jeff Partyka:
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I guess I was just going by a strict definition of cover, as in recording something you didn't write yourself ...</STRONG>

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Hmm. Looking back at what I just wrote here, it doesn't look right ... I guess I too think of a "cover" mostly as something that's been recorded AND RELEASED before ... so Luke's point is well taken ...

Of course most Beatles & Stones covers, although I prefer Howlin' Wolf's Little Red Rooster and am not a big fan of John Lennon's versions of Chuck Berry's songs. I much prefer his Larry Williams covers! For some reason I hate most of the Kinks covers (ie. Louie, Louie, Naggin' Woman, Dancing in the Street, etc). They really stand out as "sore thumbs" among Ray's songs.
As much as I love Bo Diddley, I prefer The Zombies version of Road Runner.

Toots & the Maytals do a great cover of Louie, Louie. Man, never expected to hear that from a reggae band.

Speaking of Lennon's Chuck Berry covers, Jerry Lee Lewis is almost the only artist who's made Chuck Berry covers that I really liked. People seem to make great recordings that are clearly influenced by Berry's guitar ("Fun, Fun, Fun"), his lyrics ("Subterranean Homesick Blues"), or anything else, but bands seem to have less success covering his tunes. Never liked the Beach Boys doing Rock N' Roll Music, the Beatles version of that was almost a sign that the pressures of Beatlemania was getting to them (John's vocals sound stressed out to me)...the Stones performed good versions of "Around and Around" and "Bye Bye Johnny," but I'm not a big fan of Mick's vocals on those. Just my two cents...

Oh, and of course there's Elvis, who did tons of great covers. A lot of garbage, too, but a lot of gems as well.

I prefer James Taylor's versions of "Up On The Roof" "You've Got A Friend" "How Sweet It Is" and "Every Day" to the originals. And I like the Blues Brothers doing "Soul Man" more for the dancin' and visuals than the singing...and then there is always "RESPECT" from Aretha Franklin rather than Otis Redding.

I also like the Stones covers of Berry tunes. I do, however, hate their cover of My Girl.
Toots and the Maytals also do a cool cover of We Shall Overcome.
Speaking of Toots, the Clash did a pretty nice job with Pressure Drop. I also love their cover of I Fought The Law.

Originally posted by Camarillo:
<STRONG>...Rock N' Roll Music, the Beatles version ... (John's vocals sound stressed out to me)</STRONG>

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The Beatles' recording of RNRM was done in _one_ take (on Sunday 18 Oct 1964, exactly 37 years ago last week).

Sure, I wish the vocal was a bit richer, and I wish the whole track had a more solid balance... but I don't dare complain about such an impressive live performance from the 5 of them (JPGR + Sir George on piano, obvious once you know it).

Getting back to Buddy Miles:
He re-did "Down By The River(Neil Young) as opposed to "Take me to the River".
His re-make of the Neil song is great.
Especially the live version that's on the Mercury "Best of Buddy Miles" cd.